The subject of Zurbarán’s painting is the young Virgin Mary. According to medieval legend, she lived as a girl in the Temple in Jerusalem, where she devoted herself to praying and sewing vestments. This was a subject particularly popular in Italian and Spanish paintings of the seventeenth century, with the Virgin serving as a model of behavior for young women. The delicate modeling of the Virgin’s face and the attention to the still-life elements are characteristic of Zurbarán’s early style.

Athens. National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. "From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," December 13, 1992–April 11, 1993, no. 23.

Valerian von Loga. Die Malerei in Spanien vom XIV. bis XVIII. Jahrhundert. Berlin, 1923, p. 267, as an example of his early style; as with the heirs of Beruete.

August L. Mayer. "The Education of the Virgin, by Zurbarán." Burlington Magazine 44 (January–June 1924), p. 212, compares it with the "Education of the Virgin" (private collection, Italy, formerly in the Contini-Bonacossi collection) and dates the latter picture about 1630–35, considering it a later, more successful work.

"New Painting by Zurbarán Acquired." Bulletin of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts 27 (October 1, 1938), p. 123, mentions our painting in relation to a version of the same subject ascribed to Zurbarán, recently purchased by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 234–35, ill., calls it a work in the artist's early style on the basis of the delicate modeling of the Virgin's head and the emphatic painting of the curtain.

Martin Soria. "Francisco de Zurbarán: A Study of His Style I." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 25 (January 1944), p. 45, fig. 7, dates it between 1630–34, noting that the emphatic drawing of the curtain agrees with other works from his second style; considers it later than the Virgin then in the Contini-Bonacossi collection, which he dates before 1629, and finds the modeling and expression closest to that in the "Immaculate Conception" (collection of the Marquis of Casa Domecq, Jerez de la Frontera) of 1632; considers the version in The Minneapolis Institute of Art too weak to be an autograph work, ascribing it to a follower.

Martin S. Soria. The Paintings of Zurbarán. London, 1953, pp. 2, 22, 148, no. 67, pl. 39, dates it about 1632 and the Contini-Bonacossi picture about 1627; notes the influence of Flemish painting in Seville, mentioning in particular an altarpiece of 1548 ascribed by Ponz to "Frans Frutet" (fig. 11); sees the source for the subject in 16th century Bolognese painting, as in Guido Reni's lost picture of the Virgin Sewing; also mentions an engraving of the subject by the Flemish artist Jerome Wierix; cites a version of this subject in the Hermitage, Leningrad, and the related "Young Virgin Asleep" in the Collegiate Church, Jerez de la Frontera.

Paul Guinard. Zurbarán et les peintres espagnols de la vie monastique. Paris, 1960, pp. 139, opp. pl. 84, p. 212, no. 23, pl. 85, dates it shortly after the "Young Virgin Asleep" (Collegiate Church, Jerez de la Frontera); calls our picture a work of rare quality, noting that there are many studio replicas, one of the best being in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; suggests our painting is the one from the collection of the Count of Montenegro, Palma de Mallorca (see Notes).

José de Mesa and Teresa Gisbert. Historia de la pintura cuzqueña. Lima, 1982, p. 305, cites Zurbarán's paintings of the Young Virgin Sewing as prototypes for similar paintings in the Cuzco and Potosí schools.

Jeannine Baticle et. al. Zurbarán. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1987, pp. 255–58, 260, 287, no. 47, ill. (color), dates it about 1635–40, but notes that the Virgin bears a resemblance to the child Mary in the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception of 1656 (Plácido Arango collection, cat. no. 64); suggests that the model for the Immaculate Conception may have been the artist's daughter Manuela, born about 1650.

John Moffitt. "Mary as a "Prophetic Seamstress" in Siglo de Oro Sevillian Painting." Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 54 (1993), pp. 147–50, 153, 155–56, fig. 3, sees the objects in the picture as "symbolically charged attributes" and challenges Brown's (see Ref. Brown 1974) view that they are no more than "stage props"; suggests the picture is more appropriately called "The Praying Virgin-Annunciate in Nazareth as a Sadly Prophetic Seamstress".

According to the Protoevangelium of James (7:1–8:1), the Virgin was brought to the Temple at the age of three and reared there. Pseudo-Matthew, in another apocryphal text elaborated on this story, adding that, "she applied herself so to working the wool, and even what aged women could not contrive to do she at such a tender age succeeded in" [see Ref. Baticle 1987, p. 256]. The present picture is one of three variants ascribed to Zurbarán depicting the young Virgin who has interrupted her sewing to pray. A painting in a private collection, Florence, showing the Virgin in a very similar attitude, includes the figures of Joachim and Anna, and is usually dated somewhat earlier than ours. A third picture (Hermitage, St. Petersburg) which is compositionally quite different, shows a three-quarter view of the child Mary seated, also at prayer with sewing in her lap. This picture, which does not include the numerous still-life elements of the other two versions, is most often considered the latest of the three. A painting formerly in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (and coll. José de Madrazo in 1856, see cat. Madrazo, 1856, no. 447), and a related picture sold at Christie's, London, June 26, 1970, lot 62, appear to be weak copies of our picture. Neither painting includes the small table at the Virgin's left. What may be a third copy of our composition is mentioned in Ref. Torres Martín, 1963, in the Renart collection, Barcelona. The painting of the Young Virgin in the collection of the Count of Montenegro, Palma de Mallorca, in 1845 (see J.M. Bover, Noticia...de los museos del...Cardenal Despuig existentes en Mallorca, 1845, p. 151, no. 44) may be our picture, but could also be the painting formerly in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.